they want comprehensive immigration reforms. we will do it in the senate and we will do it together. interests.e nation's it is in the security interests of the united states to have comprehensive immigration reform. , we do not know how to protect america of we do not know who is here to fill the american dream. in the to get those shadows into a light that have an opportunity to earn their citizenship and the part of the dream. every know, as does you have fruitif for breakfast this morning, it

was probably picked in the hot sun by an american worker with a bent back and a sunburned face. we know that if you had chicken for dinner last night, it was probably plucked by the calloused hands of an american worker to provide you your dinner. someone in your family who need care, the chances are that it is an immigrant worker whose steady hand and warm heart is taking care of their daily necessities each and every day. of the most some successful high-tech companies in america were founded by an immigrant in the united states. these are people doing the jobs to build america. it is time to give them the dignity they deserve and the opportunity to earn their way to the american dream.

--e gang of eight senators usa]anting >> we are the right to the bill as we speak. it will be a strong foundation that we believe can be used at the judiciary committee next week, a given input into the house of representatives and sent to president obama to sign. me close by saying there are still opponent to the idea of

immigration reform. we must join together. [speaking spansiish] >> thank you, a center of minden says. he mentioned of the house of representatives. -- center and mendez. he mentions the house of representatives. introducing some new has rallied. the center luis gutierrez -- gutierrez is our

representative in the house. he cares about immigration reform across america. i give you louis could he gutierrez. >> gracias. the time is now. the time is now. i understand that better than anyone else in congress. janet napolitano.paul loza arizona.state of

wait a minute. there's somebody that has them working hard from new york, congressman charlie rangel is there with us. antonio.s, from the fighting irish of the new york, joe crowley.

congressman ed bass was -- vasquez from new york. comedless of where you from, whether it is ireland, no matter where you come from she has stood up to defend the rights of immigrants, congresswoman eve up claa clark. [speaking spanish] and our new colleagues from florida joe garcia. the time is >> no.

w. >> we voted in november. we watched on a election night. i do not care if you were watching on english tv or spanish. or in some other language. if you saw how the very educated television experts, one after another, said it was latinos and asians and african immigrants, it was their children and their friends and their families, committed to their communities that returned barack obama to the white house. we deliver the votes that delivers states life florida to the democrats. they came with a great deal of hope and trust. the people who returned

president obama to the white house but trust in him and the democratic party to deliver on what was promised. it is not simply that they rejected the other candidates approach. they rejected the be to show up a dream act. based thise they had on july 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the united states by forcing them to self support. african immigrants, that asians have voted in record numbers for president obama despite the most tremendous increase in deportations of any president in history. despite 1400 deportation's a.d.

forcibly removed from the united states. -- deportations forcibly removed from the united states. they knew that was the way to stop the deportations. ayday we are here to sta [speaking spanish] simple and to make a clear demands that the promises of the immigration reform and going behind the dreamers, and now we have 500,000 young men and women that are safe from deportation. now we say bring your bombs and your dad.

>> i will tell you what i have been telling people across the country. work hard. push us. keep pushing us. together we will deliver immigration reform this year. [cheers and applause] you need to guarantee you give me and my colleagues and the congress of the united states no place to hide. there are no acceptable excuse for failing to pass immigration reform this year. no excuses will be accepted. [cheers and applause] part, when i say things are snowing -- slowing down, i king of the people who came to me in salinas,

california. a woman told me she could no longer where a dress because she was so embarrassed to show her knees. her knees were knelt to cut garlic that flavors our food. her knees were so bruised and raw, covered them with pants. she is one of the faces i have in my mind when i go to work to make immigration a reality. s and herr knee shoulders are much like others that put food on your table every day. there is a funny thing about the shouldersknees and that pick our future -- through its and vegetables. those are the same that clean our offices and park our cars. they are attached to people. [speaking spanish] laws that respect

to those people. [speaking spanish] [cheers and applause] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

[cheers and applause] [speaking spanish] [cheers and applause] when i left my house last night and i said been by to my wife and to my children, they knew one thing.

that i was coming back at the end of the work week here in washington, d.c. [cheers and applause] we must understand the urgency of our fight and of our struggle. they will deport 1400 people today. there will be 300 american citizen children who will come home and not find their dad or imam. -- or their moment. mom.eir [cheers andanish] applause]

i have that protection. we will fight until everyone who works in america and wants to return to their family has the same protection that every member of congress has to the address for you today. si, se puede! si, se puede!] the time is -- crowd chants "now"] [speaking spanish] >> ok. [speaking spanish]

now we want to welcome someone who was instrumental in putting this whole thing together. these welcome to the stage person who will introduce the next speaker. [speaking spanish] brothers andnoon, sisters. it is a beautiful day. i am with the center for

community change. we are proud members of the theory immigration reform movement. over the last few months, we have organized a national keeping families together a bus tour that has traveled 30,000 miles, visited 90 cities and 100 members of congress all over this country. i want to recognize the amazing women and men who comprise the leadership that has been in the struggle 15 years. fe are the heart and soul of our movement. they organize in the streets, at the ballot box, and in contours. let me introduce the alliance for justice, the alabama coalition for immigrant justice, arkansas the united immigrant coalition, center for community change, col. immigrant

rights coalition, coalition for andgrant rights, el centro some of the pueblo indian from new mexico are here. coalition for immigrant and refugee rights is here. the latin american coalition from north carolina is in the house today. [cheers and applause] .aine people's alliance the new york immigration coalition. the massachusetts the immigrant rights coalition. michigan united, national people's action, one america from washington state, pennsylvania immigration arizona,, promise sunflower community action all the way from kansas, tennessee immigrant and advocacy coalition.

from all over this country, we are organizing. let's give them may be hand. it is my honor to introduce to , catherine, who will speak for families and everyone who needs immigration reform this year, right now in 2013. she is 17 years old from columbia. she lives in queens. she will bring up her mother who works as a home health-care a. she was president of her high school class -- home health-care aide. she was a leader or comprehensive immigration reform, which keeps our families together. please give a warm welcome to katharine. [cheers and applause] >> [speaking spanish. ]

si, se puede! today, i am here not to talk about my story anymore. i want to talk about the woman who is next to me, my hero. she is my mother. i want you to look around to all of the people who are surrounding you. whether you are fighting for immigrant justice and all of the rights that we have. i also want you to think about your mother, your father, your cousin, your uncles, all of your family members. think about their dreams and all the sacrifices they made to keep us here together in this country. we are here because of them. we are here because of all of us. this is a movement.

a couple of months ago before today, i ask a mother, what is your dream? she told me, my dream is to be healthy so i can give you a future full of opportunities and success like you never had before. this moved me a lot. this inspired me. it is my motivation for being here today and for us to be here today. let's think about this. why are the original dreamers. need comprehensive immigration reform that is inclusive of every single member of my community. a mother and i came to the united states from colombia three years ago. there has not been a day that this amazing woman has taken a break from being a mother, a ander, a best friend, when the most amazing human being i have ever known.

spanish] she works as a home health aide from monday until sunday. when i am dedicating my soul to education, she is at home getting ready to go to work doing a job that is hard to do. it is unacceptable that the system does not recognize my mother who she is because we do not have the regular immigration status. i am tired, as many of you are tired, of seeing our parents being oppressed, not because of their skills because they are talented. because a procedure that defines a person in the united states when it should not. we are here today to fight for our rights, to fight for a state in the current immigration policy. we are sending a message that the time to do right has come to

pass immigration reform -- reform that will include every single member of our community and will not leave anybody behind. we are fighting for all undocumented and documented immigrants. for families here today. for families back home and for families that have been separated because of the in -- immigration policy right now. [speaking spanish] puede! crowd chants si, se puede!] >> what time is it?

what time is a? the time is now. speaking spanish] introduce theo president of my local and a hero to all office cleaners and security officers. all the way from connecticut down to florida. please welcome the president of seiu 230. spanish] >> the time is now. the time is -- the time is -- the time is --

the time is -- it is mynd sisters, order for the next segment of our program to introduce to you a group of speakers. they do not only talk about immigration reform. they live it every day. they represent millions of workers throughout our country. they are united here today to say that the labor movement stance with those who seek immigration reform now the. we work -- seek immigration reform. we work hard to make it happen. these leaders joined together when we needed to fight for health care reform. these leaders joined together during the years of the civil

rights movement to bring justice to millions of people in our country. worked hard for equality between men and women so that they could receive the same pay. with you tos stand say everybody in america deserves the same rights. we want immigration reform now. [cheers and applause] speaking spanish] ahora.a reforma ahora. [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] brothers and sisters, welcome leadersn on -- arms the who will speak on behalf of our great group of labor leaders. we will hear from the president henry., mary kay we will hear from the president of the all workers -- auto workers. we will hear from the vice- president of the national teachers' union. unitedwill hear from the

farm workers. sisters, let's welcome our labor leaders. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, hector. ago, when our country was founded, immigrant workers, african american workers, white workers said, enough is enough. we deserve better. we deserve to be part of the american dream like everybody in our nation. the time is now for free them. the time is now for equality. by the teamtoday members of our union, many of whom are represented in this crowd.

she fled el salvador 30 years ago. she had to leave her children in el salvador for 10 years. a citizenere today as of this country fighting for all immigrants to have citizenship. [cheers and applause] i am joined today by judith powell. her people came from the caribbean and from georgia. conglomeration of caribbean families. she grew up in new york. she said to me, every worker deserves an equal shot at the american dream. we need to bring of 11 million workers out of the shadows and into full citizenship once and for all.

these two systems and all of the labor people in this line stand on the shoulders of workers who had the courage to say, enough is enough, we deserve better. we are going to join hands in this country and change it once and for all. we are joined today by communication workers, by health-care workers, by teachers, by firm workers, by workers all across this land -- farm workers who are with us today. they cannot take off work like we did, but they are with us in spirit today. they want us to stay in the streets to keep pressuring congress. we are going to pass, and since immigration reform now. the time is now. the time is now. the time is now. now, my brother, bob king

from the autoworkers. [cheers and applause] proud to be here with , my vice from the uaw president. i am so proud to be here with the president of lacma. so proud to be here with the executive director, hector sanchez. i am is so proud to be here with the uaw member and activist for indian rights, cindy garcia. today so proud to be here with all of you. change never happens unless people come together to march, rally, sit in. you are doing what it takes to bring justice to the immigrant workers in america. to be proud that you are making history today.

of ouron is proud history of standing up for human rights, civil rights, for standing with giants like dr. giants liker king, cesar chavez. we commit to stay in the movement to march come to sit in, whatever it takes. we are in the fight with you. we are going to demand a clear path to citizenship. we are going to demand that families are reunited. we are going to demands that all immigrant workers, united states workers, all workers have the rights for collective bargaining and fair wages and benefits. the time is now for immigration reform. the time is now. chants "the time is now

tosed] >> on the senate homeland security committee. just under two hours. >> i have three glasses of water set up. somebody must think it is going to be a long hearing. i just want to bring us to order. we are grateful for your presence and thanks for your willingness to testify and

respond to the questions we have. i had a meeting with secretary napolitano. i had to run over to the house for a meeting there -- he had to run over to the house for a meeting there. this is a series of hearings we are holding to review the progress that been made securing our borders and identify the changes that need to be addressed. i stayed down last night and i like to start most of my days by working out. homely at the ymca back in delaware before i catch the train. but i was dropped off at the senate gym that we have. it seems like most of the senators who have been working on immigration reform were there.

they were trying to figure out its borders for more secure and how to measure that. today's hearing is probably more german than you think. we talked about it a lot over breakfast -- jermaine can you think. think. you huge detroit tigers fan. for no good reason. but to be in detroit for the first week of baseball season, i spent some time with senator levin. the water border with canada is enormous. i had the privilege to go with senator mccain down to the border between arizona and mexico. i was with senator mccaul and secretary napolitano. mccall and secretary

napolitano. i saw a border that is more secure than we have had in a long time. andg with senator mccain mayors and law enforcement officers, i was told that the crime rates in the communities were the lowest in decades and continue to decline. i saw parts of the border that were overrun with illegal immigration. to rest more than 1000 people every single day. today, they have been busy day if they arrest even 50 people. that is a remarkable development. it is clearly significant change would be better. it is also consistent with the dramatic reductions we have seen of people trying to cross our borders illegally, which have reached their lowest levels since the 1970's. ofave seen the development technology like cameras and

radar. the man i spoke with told me these technologies help them pinpoint what people are trying to cross the border illegally so that agents can make an arrest and turn them back. we heard about a radar being tested on a drone that is providing the border control with an unprecedented view of the people coming across the border. a lot of system -- another system is to track footsteps to attend that where it illegal traffic is heading. , saw an inexpensive aircraft easy to fly, to be used to provide a sufficient surveillance platform for agents on the ground. dirigibles that can immigrants.detect

i have a good sense of what we need to build on that -- what we need to build on that front since -- that progress. we want to identify with these threats are for crossing of reporters. despite these gains that we have made, we face significant challenges. an arrest cannot be the only metric available to measure the performance of our efforts at the border without knowing how many people are actually trying to cross the border. we will not know how effective their efforts are today. that is a hard thing to come up with. witnesses also pointed out that homeland security keeps a variety of internal statistics on illegal activities at ports of entry that it does not make

public. i do not think that is acceptable. it is critical that the department of homeland security do a better dog was educated the public and congress on how it measures is effectiveness on the borders. it must include estimates for the numbers of people trying to cross the border without proper documentation. another challenge that most concerns me is the sophistication of the smuggling network operating along our border, -- our border, it gently with respect to tunnels. submarines and ultraviolet light is being used to avoid detection. it blows my mind that we have these folks sitting on our mountaintops and we are unable to take them down. if they are sitting on a mountaintop in afghanistan or iraq, we can take them out.

it is one of the things we can talk about here today, our inability to replicate that kind of success here. there are troubling links between organized crime in mexico and terrorist groups overseas. in order to meet these new challenges and continue to improve our security efforts, we have to evolve our approach. left to become smarter in how we deploy our limited resources and focus in addition, it's important to note that while most of the security data is focused on our ports of entry much of the illegal traffic comes through our actual ports. since 9/11 we have made tremendous improvements in how people are screened. today, all travelers must present a secure id at the border. they're automatically screened against our government's law enforcement immigration and terrorism data bases in order to ensure that dangerous people are not allowed to enter our

country. but we continue to be faced with infrastructure challenges. after 9/11 travel and trade have ramped up in recent years. and that's a good thing. international rivals arrives have been increased but staffing at our air land and sea ports has not kept up. our ports of entry need to be modernized and staffed appropriately to keep pace with these increases in travel and trade that we're seeing and that should be encouraging. we also need to make our ports of entry work more efficiently so we can focus on potential threats rather than on legitimate travelers. includes expanding trusted programs and working with the public to allow better identify wrong doers. it could also include modernizing our fees so they are fully paying for the cost of inspecting travelers and goods. we expect to hear from the administration later when the president's budget is released. lastly, as organized crime

continues to evolve and become more sophisticated we need our criminal investigate tors do the same. we must continue to focus our efforts on working on multiagency teams such tazz border enforcement security task forces allow investigators to collaborate across agency lines sharing information about known and suspected smugglers in order to generate intelligence about their operation that is can be used to attack criminal networks. there's no doubt that we have more work to do. but i believe that any honest assessment of where things stand today will conclude that we have made tremendous gains in securing our border over the past decade. as the senate begins to consider comprehensive immigration reform this month i believe that the conversation will be different from the ones we had in 2006. in 2006 the perception that the border was out of control was grounded in historically high rates of illegal immigration. today illegal immigration is at historic lows and i've seen

first-hand this last week in california a couple of years ago the unprecedented taxpayer fuppeded investments that we made to secure our borders are working. in fact yesterday i met with the former commissioner of customs and border protection and he told me that in his views the increase in border security has been one of the greatest bipartisan accomplishments over the past 25 years because it spans three administrations, has strong support from members, democrat and republican, and presidents from both parties and i agree with him. i support the efforts to modernize our immigration laws, i applaud the efforts particularly of senator mccain and others that he is working with to make the u.s. more competitive and more secure. i look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that any additional investments to make to secure our borders are targeted to the kinds of force multiplirs to proven to be effective and represent good investment. i turn over to dr. coburn in a meeting will be here shortly.

normally i don't turn to other members of the committee. we have a couple of key players here and senator mccain has spent a whole lot of time to good effect working with seven of our colleagues to try to find a path forward. he is good enough to take me down along the border and anything you would like to say before i ask our chair of our appropriator this year today jaub please feel to add. >> thank you, i think your opening statement covered the issue. i welcome the witnesses and i ok forward to some interesting comments and testimony on this issue. and it comes at a very op tune time as we are hopefully concluding our negotiations. and i want to thank you, mr. chairman, for taking the time from your schedule to come and visit our border and the people who live there and i know all of us are appreciative of your

continued intense interest in this issue. >> i'm happy to be your partner. >> senator land rue? >> again, thank you for taking the leadership to do this very important overview as we enter into one of the most important debates for our nation and really particularly want to underscore the importance of understanding the financial requirements that will be behind such an important undertaking. we have in the last ten years almost tripled from well more than tripled from 1 billion to 3.5 billion the resources going in to protect the borders of arizona, california, texas u. the borders of our country. but really impacting these states primarily along the mexican border. i am sure that we can find some resources to do more but it has been a real push in our budget

to actually fund the outline of what this committee and others put forward. so it is going to be a real challenge in these tough times so i want to let people know we're doing the best we can in the 42 billion budget but there are lots of pulls and pushes on the homeland security budget right now. thank you. >> thank you. we're lucky that senator land rue serves on this committee and also is the principal appropriator and potential for great partnership and i think it's a potential that's going to be fully realized and one that we are part of as well. i want to say good morning to senator tester. i am going to go through just brief introduction of our witnesses going to stumble on he last names. >> per if he can german. >> first acting deputy

commissioner of u.s. customs and border protection. in his capacity the deputy commissioner is the chief operating official of customs and border protection. looks pretty young to have that kind of responsibility but the ously he served as acting assistant commissioner of the office of field operations and leading the agency's port security. welcome. our second witness michael fisher, the chief of the u.s. border patrol and in this position chief fisher is responsible for planning coordinating and directing enforcement efforts to secure our nation's borders. prior to his current position chief fisher served in a number of leadership positions within the border patrol. chief fisher joined the border patrol as a child in 1987. our third witness is rand olve also known as tex.

assistant commissioner for u.s. customs and border protection ffice of air and marine. mr. alles. thank you. he joined the office of air and marine as the deputy assistant commissioner in march of 2012. before joining mr. alles served in the u.s. marine corps for 35 years. retiring in 2011 as a major general. sempler if i. way to go as we say. he was dezzilling nated as a naval aviator in 1978 more than 000 flight hours in multim

aircraft types. what type? incheweding over 30 o combat hours. you served in the southeast asia? >> no, sir. before my time. iraq. >> thank you. thanks for all that service. final witness is mr. james afmentdenchingance. associate director of homeland security investigations for the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement. as the director he has direct oversite of ice's investigative operations. prior to assuming this he held a number of key leadership positions within ice including special agent in charge for washington, d.c. and baltimore. he began his law enforcement career with u.s. customs service in 19 86. your entire statement will be made part of the record. feel free to sum rise. i ask you to keep your statements within 7 minutes. your full statements will be made part of the record and oncee